Edward Windsor, Earl of Wessex and grandson of the King of England, found his ceremonial royal duties to be wearying at times. He much preferred being in the field with his troops, which was why he’d become one of the youngest British generals in recorded history - much like one Lord Mountbatten, another illustrious royal who’d served Britain in its darkest hours.

Well, second darkest, if you were to go by the newspapers of today.

Still, soldier or not, every royal had to do their bit. Which had resulted in his mandatory attendance at the Royal Ascot today, and the usual delays associated with horses and racing and all that followed. Which had, in turn, delayed him from the one event he’d been looking forward to.

Even if he had to share the honours with a blasted Frenchman.

As the helicopter landed, he turned to his co-passenger. “General Fontaine - first time meeting Belessar?”

“Indeed, General,” Jacques Fontaine replied in a clipped accent. “I have not yet had the privilege.”

“Then you’re in for a treat. He’s quite friendly. Once you get past the layers of armour.”

“I’ve seen the videos.” The Frenchman unstrapped. “I’m also looking forward to seeing the progress we’ve made with the prisoners, though. That may be even more important.”

“Well, the Americans seem to think that Belessar can offer some special insight into them.”

“The Americans have been known to think a lot of things, some of which are even true.”

Edward grinned. “We can hope.”

As they got out of the chopper, he could see Group Captain Pemberley and a host of other officers on the tarmac. The waiting troops saluted.

“Welcome to Gragareth Station, sir,” Pemberley greeted him. “We have a small change in plans.”

“Group Captain,” Windsor replied. “Anything of concern?”

“Good news, sir. We had a breakthrough today in the interrogations, thanks to Belessar. We’ve been able to put together a picture of the species composition of the Hierarchy.”

Fontaine’s jaw dropped.

Windsor could hardly keep himself from following suit. They’d been struggling to understand this information for two decades, and now… Pemberley’s team had cracked this in a day? “You have a list of the species that make up the Hierarchy? All the species?”

“Not all - the major ones. As well as significant demographic and political data. We’ve got a presentation on this ready for you, as part of the dinner meeting.”

“Lead the way, Captain.”

Dinner had been shifted to the conference room, it appeared. Instead of a relaxed seven-course meal, they would be subsisting on turkey and lettuce sandwiches. Windsor preferred it that way.

He glanced around the table as Pemberley’s assistant - a Lieutenant-Commander something Sinclair - set up the projector. Apart from the two generals, there were three British officers - Pemberley, Sinclair, and the psychologist from MI5 he’d handpicked - a U.S. Army colonel, and, of course, Belessar.

The ultra was wearing a different armour, this one all black, a bit smaller. “New look, Belessar?” he inquired.

“Old one, actually,” replied Belessar. “My first set of armour was Nanofibre Weave Combat Armour - like this one. The one I used at Liverpool is more advanced.”

“I see,” Windsor nodded. “Any reason you chose the older set today?”

“The Boar Armor’s batteries have limited charge,” explained the ultra. “Eight hours at most. I didn’t want to run out of power in the middle of the day.”

“Ah. And this armour doesn’t have that problem?”

“Naturally. It’s unpowered.”

“How heavy is it?” asked Fontaine.

“About thirty-four kilos, give or take.”

Windsor exchanged a look with Fontaine. “And you’ve been wearing it the whole day?”

“It’s pretty comfortable. Plus, I don’t exactly have too many changes of clothes.” Belessar shrugged. “Frankly, the biggest advantage is the retractable jaw. Makes meals easier.”

“I see.” If carrying that much weight around the whole day didn’t seem out of place to the ultra, Windsor wouldn’t draw notice to it. “I understand you were able to communicate with the aliens.”

“Sort of. They communicate using an ability called Mindspeech. Nanocloud and I… stumbled on a way to use it some time ago.”

“I see. You hadn’t mentioned this earlier.”

“We thought at first that it only worked for the two of us. I was observing the alien today and, well…. I found that I could open a communication channel with it. I sort of took the opportunity.”

“Well, we’re glad you did.”

Captain Pemberley cleared her throat for attention, and Windsor focused on her.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she began. “I’d like to update you on what we’ve learnt from the interrogation of the first alien prisoner, who we had tentatively classified as a Raptor Guard.

“Thanks to an ability displayed by Belessar, we were able to make a major breakthrough today. The prisoner has revealed its name to be ‘Aisindrahas’, pronounced thus.” She pressed a button, and a growling rumble sounded, pitched low and deep.

“Play it again, Major,” said Pemberley.

Heath touched a button, and the sound repeated. Now that he focused, Windsor could make out the syllables. It sounded like a man gargling rocks, but the flow of the word was definitely there.

“The Raptors use sound to communicate, as we do,” explained Pemberley. “So do several of the species of the Hierarchy. However, their audio ranges - and frequencies - don’t always overlap. The Raptors use much lower frequency sound, including several frequencies we can’t normally pick up.”

“This is very good, Group Captain,” replied Fontaine. “I can see why you called for the change in schedule.”

Pemberley showed a hint of a smile. “Thank you, General. Let me now get to the main component of our understanding - the political structure of the Hierarchy, and details of several of its species.”

“Go on, Captain,” he said cautiously.

“The Hierarchy, as it calls itself, is a coalition of races. These races fall into three categories - the Bones of the Hierarchy, the Spine of the Hierarchy, and the Mind of the Hierarchy. Each of these represents a tier of political power.

“The species of the Bones of the Hierarchy include the ones we’ve referred to as the Sarnak, the cat-like creatures called the Lynxians, and the bear-like aliens that are called the Grizzeloids.”

“Are these their own names or names we’ve given them?” asked Fontaine.

“The names they have for themselves usually can’t be pronounced by other species. However, in Mindspeech, these are the names that they’ve been given - by other races of the Hierarchy.

“Mindspeech is a type of mind-to-mind communication that translates concepts in one alien language to a common base, and from there to another language. The aliens use it to communicate amongst themselves; it’s the basis for inter-species communication.

“Based on our conversation with the Raptor soldier Aisindrahas, we were able to identify two more species - the Tasaduk and the Vekmorath. Aisindrahas was not able to provide us with a more detailed description of them; he’s never met one.”

“Why not?” asked Fontaine.

“Same reason I’ve never met an Indonesian, sir; they don’t mix much, and Aisindrahas is a very junior soldier. We believe he’s the Raptor equivalent to a Private First Class. The interesting thing is, the Raptors themselves don’t belong to the Bones of the Hierarchy; they belong to the Spine. Aisindrahas was quite proud of that fact.”

“And the Spine of the Hierarchy are different species?” Windsor inquired.

“Yes. Aisindrahas identified four such - the Raptors themselves, the Carnotaurs, and two more species called the Gellatoid and the Vautari. He’s never met a Gellatoid, but the Vautari are the interstellar navigators of the Hierarchy. They manage all interstellar transportation, and each Hierarchy starship has several of them along to provide faster-than-light travel.”

“That’s - interesting. Do the Vautari own the FTL technology, or is it something genetic to them?”

“We haven’t been able to understand that yet, sir, but we will check. The last tier is what the Raptor called the Mind of the Hierarchy.” Pemberley switched to the next slide. “This is a set of three species, who by all accounts are the true rulers of the Hierarchy.”

“The… true rulers?”

“Yes sir. Aisindrahas could tell us a fair bit about the species of the Mind, and he was terrified of them. The three species are called the Puppetmasters, the Xeranai, and the Archons - and each of them is, individually, more powerful than a dozen Carnotaurs.”

“You’re sure of that?” asked Windsor.

Pemberley nodded. “The Puppetmasters are a species of Masters. Every single one of them is capable of perfect mind control.”

“There’s no such thing as perfect mind control,” replied Fontaine. “A mind-controlled subject will be set free the moment the Master falls asleep. Or shifts his concentration, in some cases.”

“The Puppeteers don’t have that limitation, sir, from what Aisindrahas conveyed. And each of them can control thousands of subjects.”

Windsor felt a chill run up his spine. “And the other two?”

“The Xeranai are the technology experts of the Hierarchy,” continued Pemberley. “They design the starships, the armour, the shields, and the weapons. Every single Xeranai is the equal of one of our inventors.”

“An entire species of inventors,” muttered Fontaine. “Backed by a species of mind controllers. Well, that’s going to be a nightmare to fight.”

“We can at least hope they’re vulnerable in close combat,” joked Windsor. “This would be the biggest game of kill-the-master imaginable.”

“Kill-the-master?” interrupted Belessar.

“A standard military exercise,” explained Windsor, “where troops practice fighting a mind-controller. One person is designated the master, and he can ‘tag’ soldiers in the other team, who are supposed to turn on their comrades and kill them - in line with instructions sent by the master. The surviving soldiers - the ones who aren’t tagged - have to find and ‘kill’ the master before the squad is entirely wiped out.”

Belessar nodded in understanding. “I didn’t know militaries practiced for situations like that.”

“We train for every possible situation. There have been cases in the past where soldiers had to fight a Master on their own, without ultrahuman help.” Windsor turned back to Pemberley. “Go on, Group Captain.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m afraid I have to disappoint you - the Xeranai are massive, each the size of a horse, and have the physical strength to match. However, the real challenge are the Archons, who are first amongst equals within the Mind.

“Each Archon has the strength of a Herculean, and the ability to fly independently.”

“Damn,” muttered Windsor. “A species of Skymasters?”

“Think of them as Skymaster merged with Chikaradzuyoi. The Raptor Aisindrahas gave us the sense that they are strong enough to tear apart Xeranai starships with their bare hands.”

“I see. Any idea how these races interact with each other?”

“Aisindrahas claims that the species of the Mind are in charge and those of the Spine and the Bones just follow their orders. The species of the Spine seem to have a slightly better status than those of the Bones, but that may be just Aisindrahas’ impression.”

Windsor nodded. “This is amazing work, Group Captain. A quick question - any limitations on how much you can say to the prisoner?”

Pemberley glanced at Belessar. The ultra stirred. “I can communicate for about fourteen seconds at a time, once every eighteen minutes, with this alien. However, we’ve been using a chunk of the time to get him to indicate and translate words. I think Lieutenant-Commander Sinclair is handling that?”

The other woman, Sinclair, stepped in. “We’ve established a baseline vocabulary of about seventy-nine actual words. We’ll be building on that every day.”

Windsor nodded. “Seventy-nine words is a good start. What do you see as the target?”

“By the end of this week, we should have about a thousand words, enough for effective conversation. After that, we’ll keep adding organically. Depending, of course, on the vocabulary of the prisoners.”

“This is exceptionally good work, people. What about the second prisoner?”

“We’ll be interrogating him from tomorrow, sir. We wanted to establish a baseline first. The details of what we learnt will also be shared in a report separately for your reference.”

Windsor nodded. “Please convey my congratulations to your team, Captain Pemberley.”